Heschel’s Wonder

An Ontological Necessity

The problem is not how to revitalize prayer; the problem is how to revitalize ourselves. Let us begin to cultivate these thoughts and virtues without which our worship becomes, of necessity, a prayer for the dead – for ideas which are dead to our hearts.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Spiritual Delicacy

My intention is not to offer blueprints, to prescribe new rules – except one: Prayer must have life. It must not be a drudgery, something done in a rut, something to get over with. It must not be fiction, it must not be flattened to a ceremony, to an act of mere respect for tradition.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Prayer is Sacrifice

Prayer has the power to generate insight, it endows us often with understanding not attainable by speculation. Prayer is a way to faith. Some of mankind’s deepest spiritual insights are born in moments of prayer.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

The Primacy of Inwardness

“Prayer is not for the sake of something else. We pray in order to pray. It is the queen of all commandments. No religious act is performed in which prayer is not present. No other mitzvah (commandment; a sacred act) enters our lives as frequently, as steadily, as the majesty of prayer.”

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

You Stand

The way to prayer leads through acts of wonder and radical amazement. The illusion of total intelligibility, the indifference to the mystery that is everywhere, the foolishness of ultimate self-reliance are serious obstacles on the way. It is in moments of our being faced with the mystery of living and dying, of knowing and not-knowing, of love and the inability of love – that we pray, that we address ourselves to Him who is beyond the mystery.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Before Whom You Stand

To pray, then, means to bring God back into the world, to establish His kingship, to let His glory prevail. This is why in the greatest moments of our lives, on the Days of Awe, we cry out of the depth of our disconcerted souls, a prayer of redemption:

And so, Lord our God, grant Thy awe to all Thy works, and your dread to all Thou hast created, that all Thy works may fear Thee, and all who have been created prostrate themselves before Thee, and all form one union to do Thy will with a whole heart.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

You Stand

The act of prayer is more than a process of the mind and a movement of the lips. It is an act that happens between man and God – in the presence of God. Reading or studying the text of a prayer is not the same as praying. What marks the act of prayer is the decision to enter and face the presence of God. To pray means to expose oneself to Him, to His judgment.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

Know (or Understand)

To live without prayer is to live without God, to live without a soul. No one is able to think of Him unless he has learned how to pray to Him. For this is the way man learns to think of the true God-of the God of Israel. He first is aware of His presence long before he thinks of His essence. And to pray is to sense His presence.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

The Separation of Church and God

Prayer is the microcosm of the soul. It is the whole soul in one moment; the quintessence of all our acts; the climax of all our thoughts. It rises as high as our thoughts … thus, prayer is a part of a greater issue. It depends upon the total spiritual situation of man and upon a mind within which God is at home … The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism